


The Reaper

by Ridiculosity



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Magic, Death, F/M, Historical Fantasy, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Magic, Middle Ages, Temporary Character Death, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24751447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ridiculosity/pseuds/Ridiculosity
Summary: Black of hair, black of eyes. Not as tall as she was expecting him to be – but well dressed. His scythe was silver. Moonlight sliced across it. There was something rich about him, something that smelled like good fortune and decadence. She found the irony amusing, but only because she intended to partake in his trade. [I know general + graphic depictions of violence feels strange, but honestly it's a little violence. I just want to make sure I cover my bases and don't trigger anyone.]
Relationships: Molly Hooper/Jim Moriarty
Comments: 23
Kudos: 126





	The Reaper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BurningLostStars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningLostStars/gifts).



> burningloststars is the best person I know, and she’s just gotten done with her exams (FANTASTICALLY, MIGHT I ADD)! Her prompt to me was something tender, something decadent, and something with death as a main themes. I have tried to deliver! 
> 
> I know I told you guys I won’t be doing a lot of fanfiction for a while, especially not Sherlock, but the lockdown has made us all walk back on our promises. She sent me this prompt, and I ran with it!!! I know it’s not as tender as you’d hope it would be, but it’s PLENTY shelley and very death. 
> 
> SO - Molliarty, 1304 words, trigger warnings for character death and some violence! The setting is 1400s England, since Molly is wearing a bodice and those didn't exist before the 1400s.

She sliced her index finger and middle finger. Blood dripped off of them.

She clutched her fingers, squeezing more and more out. Dragged them across the chalked lines. Her petticoat was caked in mud and blood.

She stepped back from the pentagram, hoped and prayed that she wasn’t wrong about her instincts. Mathilde had told her exactly what to and how to do it – but Mathilde had never done _this_ before. It was one thing to be the witch on the corner of the village, collecting herbs to sort out digestion. Quite another to summon death.

She held Sherlock’s body by the shoulders, dragging him to the centre of the pentagram. The sound of the wind howling had her on edge – the windows rattled ominously. _A good time to be raising the dead,_ she thought to herself. She looked up when she heard the howl of an animal, and then returned to focus on the bowl of herbs Mathilde had handed her.

No one had seen Sherlock Holmes die except for Molly Hooper. No one, not even John Watson knew that Sherlock’s adversary was not even a man. No one knew how slim his chances had been of coming out of this unscathed. And no one – not even Sherlock Holmes – knew what Molly intended to do in this minute.

She stood up, shook her skirts out. Twisted her braided hair and pinned it up into a bun. Cleaned her face in the basin. Her feet were bare, and her skirts still muddy. Her bodice was laced up tightly, and she had no intention to change into her best clothes. She knew she was about to die, and if there was ever a time to wear her mother’s neatly woven blue, it was now. But she couldn’t bring herself to do that – she ought to look the part, after all. She couldn’t be in her Christmas best for death to drag her away to hell. 

“Blood from my body,” muttered Molly under her breath, watching Sherlock’s lifeless body. “Fire from the earth.”

Smoke surrounded her. The bowl of herbs smelled like Mathilde, even while they were on fire. She shut her eyes, trying not to think of Mathilde.

She put her bowl down. Sat on her knees. The smoke parted, encouraged by the whistling wind to spread elsewhere in the house.

“Flesh from my bone,” she whispered. In one fell swoop, she sliced her smallest finger from her left hand off.

The pain shot through her, through her hand, through her wrist, through her arm, to her head. She felt like her eyes would pop off from the pain – hissed in pain, even as the fire in the bowl turned green.

“Good evening, my love.”

The voice was smooth, like marble. It reminded her of soup and parsley, of cold winter nights and packed snow.

“Good evening,” said Molly through her teeth. “How are you, my lord?”

“Quite well,” he said, as if it were market day and he was buying a bushel of apples from her. “And you? A good harvest this year?”

“Yes, lord,” said Molly, stemming the flow of blood by holding it tighter and tighter. “Johann had poor luck with his sheep, but the rest of us have done well.”

“Johann’s son is apprenticed as a monk, isn’t he?”

“Yes, lord.”

“I should pay him a visit sometime,” he said with a curl of his lip.

Finally, she looked at him. Black of hair, black of eyes. Not as tall as she was expecting him to be – but well dressed. His scythe was silver. Moonlight sliced across it. There was something rich about him, something that smelled like good fortune and decadence. She found the irony amusing, but only because she intended to partake in his trade. “You should not visit him _,_ my lord.”

“You have one life to barter, my dear,” said the man. “You want to waste it on him?” he kicked Sherlock gently, whose head lolled. Molly clutched her hand tighter. “Why not save it for Johann’s son?”

“I’d rather this life, my lord,” said Molly formally.

“Very courageous of you,” he said. Shadows crept into the corners of his words. “But you will have to make a better sale of your life. I do not see why I should be buying it from you in exchange for my enemy’s. An enemy I just killed, too - for being too ambitious, for reaching too far. What have you to give me that is more tempting than the permanency of that death?”

Molly stood up, still holding her hand. “I will be dying in a few days anyway, my lord, if this wound doesn’t heal. Wouldn’t you rather take me now than then?”

“You would be dying _then_ if you do, dear,” he said, wielding his scythe. “If you die then, you _die._ If I take you now, you lie between life and death. Your debt to me will be as long as I want it to be, after which you fade.”

“I understand,” she said.

“So make a sale. Tell me what you are worth to me.”

Molly squared her shoulders. “I can clean. I can cook.”

“I do not need anybody to clean, and I cannot taste food.”

She frowned. “But you smell just like food!” she said.

He raised his eyebrows. “Do I?” he asked.

“Like soup. And richly cooked mutton. Like a feast day.”

“Fascinating,” he said. “But you have to make a better sale.”

“I can keep books.”

“That might be handy.

“I… I’ve studied death.”

He tilted his head in interest. She felt uncomfortable telling him of this, because the village looked down on it, but she ploughed on. “I study death. I have for a long time – talk to bodies, understand the living. I don’t know if it’ll be useful, but you ought to know.”

Summoning death, after all, was not something anyone did in their time off. Not even Mathilde. But Molly – Molly may not have summoned death, but she had spoken to death. Everytime a squirrel died, everytime a dove fell. When her father had died of an infected injury from a rusted nail. When her mother had died of a bad cold. She was a carpenter’s daughter – a waged labourer with no fortune, but she knew death.

He smiled slowly. “It might be useful. If I choose to take you. Anything else, Molly Hooper?”

She met his eyes. Dropped her hands to her sides, balling them into fists. Her chin jutted outwards.

“I’m good.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her.

She was expecting him to question this, to ask why he would need someone who was good. Why she would want to come if she was good. Why Sherlock Holmes, if she was so good.

But he asked nothing of her, he only stepped off the pentagram, crossed Sherlock’s body, and came closer. She stood her ground.

His fingers inched forward. Between his fingers, daisies grew spontaneously.

His hand touched the back of her neck, sliding into her hair. He made her look upwards to him, gazing into her eyes as if trying to decipher something she could not make out. He was now smelling less like mutton and soup and a lot more like spiced applesauce. He smiled, and his teeth seemed oddly pointed and sharp.

“It’s a deal, Molly Hooper.”

His lips pressed into hers. They slid across her smoothly, demanding entry into her being. She could feel his teeth on her lips, dragging something out of her – something that may have been human, that may have known how to cook, to clean, to be good. But she could tell that it wasn’t those parts of her that he wanted. As he kissed her, what he took out of her was none of those things – he took the pain in her finger out of her. He took Sherlock out of her.

She breathed deeply when he was done. She looked up to see Sherlock’s finger inching forward in the pentagram she had made. He lifted his head up. “Molly –?”

Everything went black.

**Author's Note:**

> I love reviews, might I add :D   
> Depending on what I feel, I might even continue this!!


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